


Untamed

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Blow Jobs, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Sketchy Relationship, kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-08-23 16:45:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16622633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: Arthur waltzes through the door, eyes bright and hair damp with the day’s play, lays his bills on the counter- and Merlin knew.





	Untamed

**Author's Note:**

> Uk age of consent is 16

He is soft, gentle. Untamed youth and wild charisma. Merlin has never  _ craved  _ the way he does now. This boy, this unfettered explosion of ignorance and energy, vulnerable and attainable at his hands. He burst through the doors of the cafe wreathed in laughter and midday sun.

Merlin knows, the way a person does, that this boy is meant for him. He has been good, a kind man, a generous benefactor. He’s always offered alms to those on the street, guided the blind across the road, seated the elderly in his own place. As any good Sunday School boy does, he says his prayers on knees, ignoring the burn of the carpet.

He’s a good man, despite his mother’s worries. Despite the business he’s built, with no sympathy for those who cannot pay, for those who open his doors for just a slice of bread. He’s built his empire alone, and had thought to rule it forever that way. It had never bothered him to be lonely. God granted him life, but He did not raise the glass to Merlin’s cafe. Merlin built his building brick by brick, set the windows himself, so Merlin figures he can keep God outside of his walls.

Arthur waltzes through the door, eyes bright and hair damp with the day’s play, lays his bills on the counter- and Merlin  _ knew  _ . Merlin doesn’t so much as seduce him with baked goods as woo him with laughter and free coffees.

He is not so much older than the boy, he reasons. A decade and a few years at most. He tracks the boy with eyes that feast, with fingers that do not linger. Arthur flushes under his attention, preens when Merlin brushes nails against his scalp. He is quick to abandon his mates at their table, to slide up to Merlin’s counter with a gentle smirk, trail dirty fingers over Merlin’s clean forearms.

He bends so pretty, over Merlin’s desk. He keens like an orchestra.

His mother knows, Merlin thinks, about the company he keeps. Knows why he suddenly stocks extra raspberry tarts and keeps the telly on sports. Why he doesn’t come for Saturday dinner and smells like teen body spray at Sunday brunch. She looks at him with fear in her eyes, with the worry of a woman fighting the love of a mother. She says nothing though; kisses his forehead, says a prayer, and sends him on his way with wrapped dinners.

But Merlin is no fool. He knows the rules, the game he’s playing. He makes sure the boy is actually sixteen before he drags him behind closed doors. Before he sucks the breath from his lungs, from his cock.

He makes Arthur cry with want, with need. Keeps him on edge almost longer than they boy’s body can handle. Watches him melt, liquid, boneless. Blueberry eyes going winter fade, skin flushed like the evening sun. His breaths come out in sighs that ripple through the room, settle beside Merlin’s skin, salty and sated.

Merlin never lingers, never watches the boy redress. He hates watching the golden skin wrapped in the rags Arthur calls clothing. Hates knowing he has to walk away when he wants to stake his claim. He wants to mark Arthur’s neck, scratch his name across his back. Wants to bite his lips blue and bruise his thighs. He wants everyone to know he  _ owns  _ this boy. Instead he leaves him on his back, hands outstretched, begging Merlin, “Don’t go. Not this time.”

Arthur learns, though, how to keep Merlin around. How to clench around long fingers and curl his lips around full balls. He gags for Merlin, blue eyes wet and throat closing. Gags, until Merlin fears he might faint, and then just a moment longer, before he pulls off with a smirk, a wink.

Merlin doesn’t like the way the game changes, the way the power shifts. He snarls, uses nails to regain his dominance, but Arthur just sighs against his chest, laps at his nipples, suckles against his neck. Wraps his hands like chains around Merlin’s heart, keeps him pinned against a star-covered quilt.

He is so beautiful and so young and so very free. He is Merlin’s reward for a lifetime alone, for the memories that are not his, for that other world that exists behind his eyelids. His circlet shines brightest against the glow of a nightlight, the weight of the crown softening the rounded youth of his cheeks.

Arthur sneaks him home, with tales of a kingdom, with a body that bows for Merlin, with a tongue that tastes of  _ them.  _ He spins magic under Merlin’s skin, reminds him that they were stitched from the same galaxy thread. “We complete each other,” he says to Merlin’s laughter. His voice is steady, is sure, when he tells Merlin of the coin that they are.

Merlin kisses his own fear away, sharp teeth and brutal tongue arguing all the ways their wrongs are actually right.  

It is a matter of time, Merlin knows, until they are caught. Until the game is up and Merlin must run. Until he must decide if the kingdom he has built is worth the body he has found. Arthur knows this too, knows the fear that makes Merlin’s hips a bruising piston.

Child that he is, fearless and reckless and wholly unprepared, he vows himself to Merlin, above and beyond all else.

And Merlin, damn him, knows he will worship this boy to the end of his life, forgoing the God of his childhood, for the man who bought his soul with a smirk.

 


End file.
